Greetings and good wishes. Peace and joy be unto you. May
the abundant grace of the Supreme Spirit Divine and the choicest blessings of
Gurudev Swami Sivanandaji be upon you all and grant you a noble life of a
lofty and pure character and spotless good conduct. May your personality and
your day-to-day living be endowed with spiritual quality. These are my good
thoughts and sincere wishes for you as we are approaching the final month of
our current year 1999 which will also bring to an end not only this calendar
year but also the 20th century as well as the 2nd millennium.

This is my fourth letter in the Internet. There has been a
long gap of 6 months and more since the third letter, which came to you
sometime in the middle of April '99. It was posted on the website from Kuala
Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia. I had to leave for Australia when the
Malaysian programmes were concluded in order to be present at Canberra, the
Australian capital for the inauguration of a grand Hindu Temple that has taken
the devotees over there several years to finally accomplish. All the important
Hindu deities are enshrined therein. They were all made to order at Jaipur in
Rajasthan. The third week of April saw the temple come into being. This was
the main purpose of my going to Australia. It was a revisit after an interval
of full 28 years when I last visited it in 1970. It was a well attended
function which some of the state authorities also attended. Next I had to go
almost halfway across the world to the city of Lucca in Italy for presiding
over and participating in the Silver Jubilee Anniversary functions of the
Italian Yoga Teacher's Federation at the invitation of Eros Selvenizza, the
Secretary General of the federation. It was a well represented and
enthusiastic event attended by Yoga teachers from all over Italy and many
other Yoga enthusiasts from other countries as well. It was an extremely
cordial and happy get-together of numerous people bound together and united
through their common love for the science of Yoga and its teaching and
propagation in their country. It commenced on the 29th of April and concluded
on the 2nd of May. Bright and sunny weather helped to make this special 25th
Anniversary thorough success.

Leaving the city of Lucca on 2nd May I came down to Holy
Assisi, the town of Beloved Saint Francis for a four days stay during which I
briefly participated in a spiritual retreat that was taking place at that
time. From there on 6th May I returned to Rome in order to take a flight to
Frankfurt and Koln for very brief visits to these two places. The visit to
Koln was to The Divine Life Society Branch there for a special satsang
evening. My visit was not only equally for the satsang but equally to look up
my beloved old friend Sri Akai Buttner and Mother Christina Naizzy who has
been conducting this branch for long many years. This visit as well as my
meeting with them happens to be my very last and final visit and meeting.
Because, even at that time I had made up my mind that when I return to India I
shall no more leave India and travel anywhere outside.

Throughout these travels from Australia onwards Sri Sandeep
Goswamiji was my travelling companion and helper looking after all details of
stop-overs, long waits in airport lounges due to time gap for our next
connecting flight, serving me, attending to my requirements like tea etc.
fixing up suitable undisturbed place for rest and in all ways seeing that I
was comfortable and did not have any physical difficulty of any kind. This was
really a great blessing and boon from God because of my physical age with its
aches and pains all over and with the difficulty of the body in sitting down,
getting up, moving carefully with the help of a stick upon the steps of stairs
where lift was not available. I can never forget the amount of trouble he took
and the length to which he went in order to help me in ever so many ways
through out these numerous days from 8th April right upto 21st of May '99. I
gratefully remember his indispensable seva as I write these lines of this
fourth Internet letter.

On Saturday, 8th May we both took a flight from Koln to
London Heathrow Airport. As devotees from different parts of UK had turned up
to receive us at the airport. They had discussed together and fixed up a
little place where all of them had assembled and arranged a raised seat for
me. Thus our arrival immediately took a form of a regular satsang. So many
bouquets of beautiful flowers filled my hands and my lap. Many had brought
sweets and biscuits as prasad. After chanting the Lord's name and uttering a
prayer prasad was distributed to one and all. Queries about my programme were
answered by my two hosts, namely, Jagdishbhai & Hemaben Patel of Belmunt,
Surray and Anil & Rajeshwari Mehta of Southfield, who conduct a branch of
The Divine Life Society in their home. Their home is a well known centre of
D.L. Society satsang familiar to all devotees of Sivananda Gurudev in UK. Here
I must say that the main cause and reason for this London visit was the
repeated and earnest loving invitation of Smt. Hemaben & Jagdishbhai to
come and take complete rest in their comfortable home. They promised that my
rest would be quite undisturbed even by themselves as my hosts. Their word
they kept up without fail. Also, they did make it absolutely undisturbed.
Theirs was a long pending request of over past 2 years and more. I was happy
to be able to fulfil their request at last.

The first two days 9th and 10th May were given to the young
Mehta couple at Southfield. They had arranged a big satsang with my permission
with a dinner to all devotees at the close of the satsang. On 10th afternoon I
shifted to the Hema & Jagdishbhai Patel family's home and remained there
until my departure back to India on 21st May. As already mentioned, this was
to be my very last visit to this loving couple's hospitable home. They keep
contact with me through anyone happening to travel from London to India.
Otherwise they keep contact by telephone to Sri Sandeep Goswamiji, Delhi with
whom they are quite familiar. This they do because it is very difficult to get
me on the phone at Sivananda Ashram Rishikesh.

Arriving in New Delhi on 21st May I had to live the very
same day for Bombay by an evening flight as an important function was
scheduled at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan on the 22nd May. The function was for
the release of set of two audio cassettes called "Upanishad Amrut".
To prepare which Madhavi Badhiani (A very great devotee of Sri Sri Anandamayee
MA) had undertaken a great deal of trouble and shouldered much responsibility.
23rd May saw me back in Delhi to take the night Mussourie Express train for my
return to Ashram where I arrived the next morning. This travel account have
become long and chatty. However, I have knowingly done it to compensate for
the time gap through my continued silence from April up to November. After my
return to Ashram I stayed there just for a fortnight. I left for the hills on
the early morning of 7th June and stayed away for more than four months. About
a month and odd was spent in Gangotri. The remaining period from mid July to
October 10th was spent near Uttarkashi in the Ganeshpur Ashram of my Gurubhai
(Spiritual brother) revered Sri Swami Premanandaji Maharaj. He is usually
referred to as Uttarkashi Premanandaswamiji so as to distinguish between him
and our own senior gurubhai, His Holiness Revered Sri Swami Premanandaji
Maharaj of Gurudev Sivananda Ashram, Muni-Ki-Reti. The Annual 9 days Durga
Puja worship was going on at the Ashram when I returned from the hills on 11th
October.

I could stay only for 5 days because I had to leave on the
16th on my way to Phulbani in the hilly, agency area of Orissa where the 29th
All Orissa Divine Life Conference had been arranged at the end of the same
fortnight by the All Orissa D.L. Central Committee. It was a very well
attended 3 days conference from 22nd to 24th October. This was before the
sudden super cyclone smashed into the coastal area, destroyed everything in
its way and working terrible havoc. The very next day after the conference I
returned to Bhubaneswar and took a train that same afternoon for Deogarh side
in Bihar. This was in order to visit a Gurubhai of mine whom I had not seen
for quite some years past. He is Sri Swami Satyananda Paramahamsa who lived as
an Avadhoot for more than six years practicing the severe austerity of
Panchagni Tapas. He performed this difficult tapasya for six continuous years.
In each year he sat for six months at a stretch under the Sun with four other
fires behind and before him and to his right and his left. This was from
morning from sunrise until evening till sunset. Revered Swamiji also had been
wishing to meet me. I reached him on October 26th morning and stayed for 4
days until the night of October 29th. It was a truly revealing experience. He
is the founder of the Bihar School of Yoga and the organisation called
International Yoga Fellowship. They had their headquarters in Monghyr in
Bihar. It became a worldwide organisation. It gave yoga training and other
skills to thousands of aspiring students from all over the world. It conducted
systematic courses. He visited many countries abroad. But, some 10 or 12 years
ago he decided to withdraw from all activities and seclude himself in a small
village named Rikiadham because it has become a holy place due to a Dashanami
Sannyasin settling down there. He called his Ashram the SIVANANDA MATH. It has
a number of residential quarters each one of which contains a temple dedicated
to some expression of divinity. I stayed in the Dattatreya Kutir. There is a
Raghunath Kutir. There is a Ganesh Kutir and so on. The Math runs a charitable
hospital with indoor and outdoor sections both working with sincerity. The
main objective of the Sivananda Math is to uplift the underdeveloped rural
people and give them a sense of self respect. Literacy is encouraged. The Math
serves the village community in a number of important ways. It bores tube
wells for borification. It builds houses for those who have no dwelling. Roads
are constructed to previously inaccessible areas. Help is given to set up
schools. Very old and somewhat disabled people beyond age 65 years are given
Rs. 200/- per month as a sort of a personal pension so that they never go even
a day without daily meal. Another revolutionary measure is to have
successfully abolished the unfair and degrading treatment meted out to the
unfortunate widows in Hindu society. Swami Satyananda Paramahamsa has succeeded
in abolishing the term "Vidhava". The widows are now addressed as
"Divya" for they represent an aspect of Divine Mother. The villagers
have accepted the idea of seeing these Divyas wearing normal type of sarees
like other women and have on their person a few simple ornaments except the
Mangalasutra. Revered Swamiji helps to rehabilitate them. Helps their higher
education if they wish. I have never seen the like of it anywhere else in the
whole of Bharatavarsha. To give employment to the youth he prompts his
devotees to give them three wheelers, tempos and even tractors. If they have
to cover a long distance to go to their workplace, bicycles or scooter or
motorcycle is gifted to them. But, most extraordinary seva is a gift suitcase
presented to the new couples. The overall cost of the suitcase
with its contents comes to something between Rs. 60000/- to Rs. 65000/-. The
contents of this suitcase is comprehensive and selected with great thought.
The contents of the suitcase were such that they practically
included everything down to the minutest detail even giving a place to small items
like a comb, toothpaste, tooth powder and tongue cleaner down to a roll of hair tying ribbon and
hairclips etc. It also contained jewellery set of Gold and Silver for face, hands, feet
and toes as well as wrist watches for both.

Revered Swamiji's band of Sannyasins and Brahmacharis
nearly 100 in number are deeply devoted to him and ever ready at his service
at the beck and call. To note their devotion, their spirit of Guruseva as well
as selfless service of the poor villagers is an elevating experience in
itself. During my stay Swami Niranjan took me to visit a cluster of very
ancient temples nearby. The local belief is that these temples are thousand of
years old dating back much prior to the birth of Jesus Christ.

Our departure train on the 29th was very late in the night.
No matter however much I requested Swami Satyanandaji to kindly retire for the
night at his usual routine hour, he was not prepared to listen to me and
insisted upon coming out from his quarters and seeing me off in the Math car
even at that midnight hour. This visit to Rikiadham Sivananda Math was the
most important part of my programme in this entire Oct.-Nov. tour of mine. It
has been a visit that has given me great satisfaction and very great
happiness. Swami Swarupanandaji of Bhubaneshwar was constantly in my seva and
he as well as his Gurubhai from Bolangir travelled with us on the same train
from Jasidih to Calcutta. We parted company at Howrah because I was bound
towards Dumdum airport side for taking my flight to Bombay and they had to
wait and take a chance of boarding some train to Orissa where transportation
had been disrupted due to the violent cyclone, that had hit the state. Here
the onward part of my tour had come to a conclusion and I was to fly to Bombay
the next day upon my last return leg of travel back to Rishikesh Ashram.
Enroute I had two brief engagements at Jaipur and at Bikaner to which I had
committed myself at the request of the D.L. Society branches there. Jaipur had
a forenoon gathering of the branch members for awarding some citations to
honour distinguish services and evening open public satsang with chanting of
divine name and spiritual discourse. A special tent had been put up within the
courtyard of the branch premises for seating the general public. The visit to
Bikaner branch had a more specific purpose and programme. It was the
inauguration of a suitable residential quarter for my stay during future
visits to the branch. Hitherto, in the absence of any residential facility in
the branch they usually put me up in the home of a Doctor couple Mr. &
Mrs. Joshi in their residence nearby. It is literally so very nearby that the
branch was within easy walking distance. Many times I just walked across to
conduct my spiritual programme in the Bikaner programme hall. The doctors were
most hospitable. I was made to feel quite at home. However this time due to a
great deal of persistent and determined effort including fund raising by Sri
Pushpa Kathuria and her colleagues, this residential premises was constructed
and made ready for its inauguration on 7th November. And my stay also was in
this newly inaugurated Guru Niwas. Still, I visited my old hosts nearby and
spent an hour meeting their friends and relatives. It was a joy to them as
well as to me.

The day after Diwali, on 8th November we took the night
train from Bikaner to Delhi. Arriving at Delhi we had to detain at a small
railway station Sarai Rohilla by name, a considerable distance away from
Delhi. This was because the train terminates at this station, living no other
alternative. The ever hospitable Sandeep Goswami and his eldest brother very
kindly met us and took us to their elegant home situated in the quiet bustle
free colony of Anand Vihar. After a fairly relaxed stay we took the Mussourie
express the very same night back to Dehradun and to the Ashram.

At the time of mailing this letter the whole world is
waiting and looking forward to the dawn of the 21st century and the advent of
the third millennium. What do they have in store for mankind? What will they
bring to this world where the common man is wearied of war and violence and
longs to see an era of peace, friendship and goodwill prevail upon earth. This
has been the dear dream and the fond hope of all human beings throughout the
world over the past many many centuries. The law of jungle must seize to be. A
humane humanity all people wish to see.

If a major world-catastrophe is to be prevented in time,
the foremost philosophers, mystics and men of goodwill of the world must come
forward. Theirs is this sacred duty. For, the Light of Divine Knowledge, the
radiance of the Universal Power that holds all beings together that supports
the whole universe and sustains it, expresses itself through them. Their
personalities are the manifestations of the Great Cosmic Law. In ages past
there have appeared on the scene great Prophets and messengers of God,
whenever there was need to prevent decline of righteousness. Lord Krishna,
Lord Buddha, Lord Jesus, Lord Mahavira, Lord Zoroaster and such beings—so many
of them appeared when and where Divine Intervention was needed in the affairs
of mankind. There is such a need now. But, times have changed. The world has
shrunk considerably. The tempo of life has been greatly accelerated. Even
benevolent autocracy and monarchy has had to yield to democracy. Not a king
nor any such individual rule anymore but, people themselves rule the nations,
through an elected representative body. It is no wonder that Divine
Intervention too might take a similar form. Not an individual Prophet, but a
united body of world philosophers and mystics alone can solve the present-day
problems of the world and give the proper lead to those that govern the
nations, their business, their social life etc.

It is not enough today if His message is delivered on a
battlefield (Gita), or on a mount (New Testament), or in a holy place (Sarnath)
and allowed to take its own time to spread far and wide. Simultaneously all
over the world, everybody should hear the Word of God and take to the right
path. This is possible only through the agency of a united body of world
philosophers and mystics etc. and therefore, Divine Intervention might well
take that form.

Researches conducted in scientific theories and conferences
of scientists, have produced not only wonderful inventions of great utility
that add to man's comfort and pleasure, but weapons of destruction endowed
with amazing power. Researches conducted in the field of economics and
conferences of businessmen and industrialists have no doubt enabled all the
world to enjoy products proved anywhere in the world but, they have also
generated the spirit of rivalry, unethical competitiveness, fierce urge for
monopoly and ultimately becoming the incentive to war and destruction. Why?
There is nothing wrong in scientific advancement, nothing wrong with economics
and business progress. There is nothing wrong in researches and conferences.
But they have lacked proper guidance. Blind men have led the blind, and all of
them are standing on the edge of precipice.

The philosophers, mystics and men of goodwill of the world
with their spiritual insight must come to the rescue now. For, they have the
impartial eye of rational intellectual discrimination and dispassionate
guidance of human society for the good of all. They discern what is right and
what is wrong. To them the Laws of God are Living Realities. They know that
love is divine and hatred is undivine. They know that the world has been
created by God in order that men might love one another and not kill one
another. Their word, endowed with the authority of their inner communion with
God, alone can save the world from the worst calamity. The problem is a
serious and urgent One. Philosophers must act at once.

The first thing is to set the house in order. The foremost
Philosophers belonging to the various major religions of the world must
organise and conduct research into the fundamental tenets of their own
religions. Interpolations and accretions that tilt the scale of values the
wrong way, have to be removed. The spirit must be rescued from the mere form
and the reality must be re-discovered and the appearances negated.

Secondly, the philosophers of all the religions must confer
and exchange their ideas. This conference might well prove to be the
Collective descent of Divinity to save the world from ruin and destruction.
They will not only discover the common thread that links all the religions of
the world, but also the spiritual needs of the different nations and
religions, and ways and means of supplying them. Such a conference will enable
each individual philosopher to view his or her own religion in a new light.
Without in anyway altering the fundamentals of the religion, they will be able
to bring about a synthesis of all the religions, each religion taking what is
best from the others. Thus will a new World order emerge, through a new Unity
of Religions.

Thirdly, this World Philosophical Congress will provide the
correct philosophical basis for the scientists, economists and politicians to
build their edifices on. Thus guided by the philosophers, scientists will work
for the happiness and welfare of humanity, economists will plan for the
commonwealth, politicians will discover ways and means of living at peace and
maintaining the peace of the world. This is the need of the hour. I pray to
all the people of world to urge and persuade the philosophers to bring about
this event on the above lines and serve the cause of world-peace and
brother-hood. May God bless the whole mankind with peace and prosperity!

I now bring holy master Swami Sivanandaji's words to you,
"Love is the law of life. To love is to fulfil the law. And to fulfil the
law means universal welfare, peace and happiness. This world has come out of
love. It exists in love. It finally merges in to the Great Love. Love is life.
Love is joy. Love is warmth. Love is the golden tie which binds heart to
heart, soul to soul. Love is constructive and creative. Love binds and builds.
Love is the principle of regeneration. Love is an actual spiritual force you
can use with confidence. Love is a positive concrete thing. He who applies the
law of love with scientific precision can work wonders. The law of love is far
greater science than any modern science. The law of love prevails among
saints, mystics and men of good heart.

To live is to love. To love is to live. You live that you
may learn to love. You love that you may learn to live in the Eternal. A life
without faith, love and devotion is a dreary waste. It is real death. There is
no virtue higher than love; there is no religion higher than love; because
love is Truth; love is God. God is an embodiment of love. In every inch of His
creation, you can verily understand His love. Love is the immediate way to
Truth or the Kingdom of God. It is the life-principle of creation. It is the
highest expression of soul-force. It is the sum total of all the duties of
religion. It is the magic wand in the hand of a devotee by which he conquers
the whole world. It was the driving force behind Mira, Radha, Tukaram,
Tulasidas, Gouranga, Jesus and the God-intoxicated Sufis, Mansoor and Shams
Tabriez.

Love of body or skin is passion. Love of God is Prem or
devotion. It is pure love. It is love for love's sake. To love anyone for
attaining some selfish gain is selfish love. It binds you to this earth. To
love all beings as children of God, as manifestations of divinity is pure
love. It is divine love. It leads to liberation. A husband loves his wife not
for the sake of his wife, but loves her for the sake of his own Self. He is
selfish. He expects sensual pleasure from her. If some face disfiguring
disease takes away her beauty, his love for her cease. There is physical
passion in this love. There is deep selfishness. The love is mercenary. In
every earthly love, there is a hollowness, a jarring note, a hidden doubt, and
a flaw. But true, pure love is rich, profound, full and flawless. It is
eternal, unchanging, infinite. Selfish passion seeks gratification through
other. But pure, divine love seeks to make the beloved happy and to derive
happiness from the happiness of the latter. Love is sacrifice. To love is to
share and serve.

Love vibrates in the form of service, charity, generosity
and benevolence. The spirit of service must be ingrained in you. The spirit of
service must be innate or inherent in you. There should not be a mere show.
All service is empty if there is no love, affection, sincerity and bhav. It
you serve with bhav (sublime attitude) and love, God is behind you. Sankara,
Jesus, Buddha and Mohammed served. Janaka and Samartha Ramdas served. Serve,
love, give. He who practices these instructions can live through hard times
and bad days enlightened by heavenly ray.

Make others truly happy as you strive to make yourself
happy. Speak a helpful word. Give a cheering smile. Do a kind act. Serve a
little. Wipe the tears of one who is in distress. Render smooth a rough place
in another's path.

Worship the poor, the down-trodden, and the oppressed.
These are your gods. These are your visible first Gods. Love all. You will
reap the benefit of more than a million Yajnas or sacrifices, austerities and
religious vows. Regard your neighbour's happiness as your own happiness, and
regard your neighbour's pain as your own pain. Man is one. God is one. Love is
one. Law is one. Realisation is one. We are all the fruits of one tree and the
leaves of one branch. There is no stranger, no alien in this world. Everyone
is God in the process of evolution. Identify yourself with everything that
lives. Live at peace with friend and foe. All men are limbs of one body. All
creation is the family of God. Love all God's creation. Love even the leaf;
love the animals; love the birds; love the plants; love everything. This is
the way to a knowledge of the mystery underlying them all. I follow the
religion of love. I am a true Christian, a true Mussalman, a true Hindu, a
true Buddhist, a true Sikh and a true Parsi.

True religion does not consist in ritualistic observances,
baths, and pilgrimages, but in loving all. Cosmic love is all-embracing and
all-inclusive. In pure love, no one is shut out from the condemned prisoner to
the mighty emperor, from the worst scoundrel to the most reputed saint on the
surface of this earth. It is hatred that separates man from man, nation from
nation and country from another man. Hatred, pride and egoism are mental
afflictions. They are the products of ignorance only. They cannot stand before
pure love.

Hatred breeds hatred. Love begets love. Fear breeds fear.
This is the immutable psychological law. It is the natural right of love, the
power of God, to prevail upon this earth, conquering all the forces of hate
and evil.

In love lies the salvation of all beings. Love is the hope
of this dark lonesome world. This world needs leaders in every country filled
with sympathy, co-operation, love, sacrifice, compassion and tolerance. In the
cultivation of this cosmic love is individual spiritual progress, the welfare
of the community and the peace of the whole world. Set to work therefore, and
spread this gospel of cosmic love throughout the whole world.

Visit every locality nay every house. Do kirtan. Conduct
mass-prayer. Spread the message of love, unity, goodwill, service, sacrifice,
co-operation and sympathy. Let the spiritual message of oneness and the divine
call to unity, friendship, amicable co-operation, reach the hearts of all and
awaken love and brotherhood in the bosom of humanity. Let all the world be
circled with a girdle of love and enveloped in a vast heart of love.

The saints, seers and prophets of the word have spoken of
love as the end and aim and goal of life. The Rasa-lila of Sri Krishna is
filled with divinely mysterious cosmic love. My children of Love, draw
inspiration from their teachings. Tread the path of love, commune with God,
and reach the eternal abode of love. This is your highest duty. You have taken
this body to achieve Love, which alone is the goal of life.

Live in love. Breathe in love. Sing in love. Eat in love.
Drink in love. Move in love. Die in love. Purify your thoughts, speech and
action in the fire of love. Bathe and plunge in sacred ocean of love. Take the
honey of love and become an embodiment of love.

Feel that this body is a
moving temple of God. Feel that all beings are images of God. Feel that this
world is indwelt by the Lord. Feel that the one power of God works through all
hands, see through all eyes, hears through all ears. You will become a changed
being. You will enjoy the highest peace and bliss." Thus admonished our
Worshipful Holy Master Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj.

This our world (which Wendell Wilkies circled in 80 days),
this planet earth our home is not going to be transformed into a paradise.
This is certain no matter what persons holding on to some particular faith may
believe and declare. Such ideas and theories are no doubt comforting and nice
but, they are Utopian ideas. It is going to be what it is and what it has
been. Love and hate, harmony and discord, friendship and enmity, peace and
war, prosperity and adversity, success and failure, happiness and misery,
health and disease, fortune and misfortune, applause and derision and contempt
and all such pairs of opposites will continue to prevail. Is it therefore a
really hopeless situation? Certainly not so! If that is so, then where is the
hope to be sought? Where is the key to help open up a new era with a different
and better state of affairs? In which direction lies the way? What is that
factor that will bring about a halt to this downward trend and become the
turning point and initiate a dynamic movement upward, forward and onward unto
heralding the stirring advent of a new humanity?

That factor is threefold in its essential content. Broad
hearted tolerance in all people of the world, genuine and sincere
inter-religious fellowship, thirdly, the adoption of Gandhian Non-Violence
(Ahimsa) as a way of life by all countries throughout the world. We must keep
up a sustained and continuous efforts to establish these three redeemers of
human values and of human welfare. This way the world will move towards a new
dawn and a day of commonweal, world neighbourhood, loving friendships &
spiritual brotherhood.

We have the negative side and the positive side in this
human world. The task before us now and tomorrow is to do all that we can to
replace the negative by the positive. We must strive to discard the lower life
for higher life. We must rise up from the unspiritual into the spiritual. Hold
aloft the ideal, selflessly living for others by rejecting the downward pull
of selfish, self-centred living. Emphasise benign and creative unity instead
of dire destructive disunity. Work as though this task depends upon you, but
pray to the Almighty Lord to make you an instrument of his love, harmony and
peace.

As we move towards the 21st century and the new millennium
we must give prime priority to this world altering service just indicated
through the foregoing varied aspects of our blessed duties towards the human
family which has endured much travail and suffering. It deserves a liberating
new experience as it moves into the new world being aspired after and being
planned by noble hearts and minds moved by deep human concern. Let that day
dawn. Let us salute the rising sun. Let the light shine. Let joy herald this
advent. May mankind rejoice. Om Om Om!

Let me conclude with the Great Invocation:

From the point of Light
Within the Mind of God
Let Light stream forth into
the minds of men.
Let Light descend on Earth.

From the point of Love
Within the Heart of God
Let love stream forth into
The hearts of men.
May Christ return to Earth.

From the centre where the
Will of God is known
Let purpose guide the little
wills of men—
The purpose which the
Masters know and serve.

From the centre which we
Call the race of men
Let the Plan of Love and
Light work out.
And may it seal the door
Where evil dwells.
Let light and love and
Power restore the
Plan on heart.